Gay Love Poetry

by Neil Powell (ed)

  You’ll learn then how lovers become

  Scarcer than youth that would not linger.

  [The Greek Anthology, XII:30]

  CATULLUS

  Translated by C.H. Sisson

  XV

  I commend to you myself and my love,

  Aurelius, and make a modest request:

  If you have known what it is to desire

  One whom you wanted left untouched

  Then keep this boy untouched for me.

  It is not the great world that I fear;

  Those who go up and down the street

  Are lost in their own preoccupations.

  What I fear is you and your penis

  Which is after boys, good-looking or not.

  Exercise it as much as you like

  Out of the house, however you like:

  But spare this one, it is little to ask.

  If your ill mind and rapacious fury

  Carry you on to such a point

  That you do not stop at this injury

  Then you shall suffer, with feet tied up

  And mullet and radishes stuck up your arse.

  XLVIII

  If I should be allowed to go as far as kissing

  Your sweet eyes, Juventius,

  I would go on kissing them three hundred thousand times

  Nor would it ever seem I had had enough,

  Not if I harvested

  Kisses as numerous as the ears of standing corn.

  XCIX

  I kissed you while you were playing, sweet Juventius;

  It was sweeter than the sweetest ambrosia.

  I did not do it with impunity: for more than an hour,

  I remember, it was as if I was hung up on a cross

  And I could not talk myself out of it with tears

  Or get the slightest reduction of your anger.

  As soon as it was done you rinsed your lips with a lot of water

  And wiped them with every joint of your fingers

  So that nothing contracted from my mouth would remain

  As if it were the filthy spit of a dirty whore.

  Besides you forthwith handed me over to hostile love

  And tortured me in every way

  So that from being ambrosia that kiss was changed

  Into the sharpest of sharp helllebore.

  Since that is the penalty you exact for my unfortunate love

  I will never steal kisses from you again.

  MARTIAL

  Translated by Ian Shelton

  Epigram IV.7

  How, Hyllus, dare you today deny

  What you gave gladly yesterday?

  You, who were then so accommodating,

  Now obstinately prevaricating!

  You mutter about your sprouting hairs,

  Your new-grown beard and gathering years:

  But just how long must one night be

  To create this great maturity?

  Why, Hyllus, do you tease me so,

  Who loved me a mere day ago?

  If then a boy how, without warning,

  Have you become a man this morning?

  Epigram XI.8

  The breath of balm from foreign branches pressed;

  The effluence that falling saffron brings;

  The scent of apples ripening in a chest;

  Or the rich foliage of a field in Spring;

  Imperial silken robes from Palatine;

  Or amber, warming in a virgins hand;

  The far-off smell of spilt Falernian wine;

  A bee-loud garden in Sicilian land;

  Odour, which spice and altar-incense send;

  Or wreath of flowerets from a rich brow drawn;

  Why speak of these? Words fail. Their perfect blend

  Resemble my boys kiss at early dawn.

  You ask his name? Only to kiss him? Well!

  You swear as much? Sabinus, I won’t tell.

  STRATO OF SARDIS

  Translated by Mark Beech

  ‘Much as I like ... ’

  Much as I like a twelve year old’s cock,

  A thirteen year old’s is even better;

  Loves sweet flower is fourteen years old,

  Yet at just fifteen he’ll be still tastier;

  Sixteen’s for gods, while as for seventeen,

  That’s Zeus’s prerogative. And if you

  Want them older, they’re no fun —

  You’re heading after two-way traffic.

  [ The Greek Anthology, XII: 4]

  STRATO OF SARDIS

  Translated by Mark Beech

  ‘I met a boy ...’

  I met a boy among the market-stalls,

  Weaving a garland out of berries and petals.

  I couldn’t pass him by. I hovered there

  Until at last I found the chance to whisper:

  ‘How much will it cost me to buy your crown?’

  Blushing redder than his roses, staring down,

  Under his breath he stammered: ‘You must go.

  Get out of here before my father sees you.’

  I bought some wreaths for form’s sake, took them home,

  Then crowned the gods and prayed that I may have him.

  [The Greek Anthology, XII:8]

  MICHAEL DRAYTON

  from Piers Gaveston

  This Edward in the April of his age,

  Whilst yet the crown sat on his fathers head,

  My Jove with me, his Ganymede, his page,

  Frolic as May, a lusty life we led:

  He might command, he was my sovereigns son,

  And what I said, by him was ever done.

  My words as laws authentic he allowed,

  Mine yea, by him was never crossed as no;

  All my conceit as currant he avowed,

  And as my shadow still he served so:

  My hand the racket, he the tennis ball,

  My voices echo, answering every call.

  My youth the glass where he his youth beheld,

  Roses his lips, my breath sweet nectar showers,

  For in my face was natures fairest field,

  Richly adorned with beauty’s rarest flowers.

  My breast his pillow, where he laid his head,

  Mine eyes his book, my bosom was his bed.

  My smiles were life, and Heaven unto his sight,

  All his delight concluding my desire;

  From my sweet sun, he borrowed all his light,

  And as a fly played with my beauty’s fire.

  His lovesick lips at every kissing qualm,

  Cling to my lips, to cure their grief with balm.

  Like as the wanton ivy with his twine,

  Whenas the oak his rootless body warms,

  The straightest saplings strictly doth combine,

  Clipping the woods with his lascivious arms:

  Such our embraces when our sport begins,

  Lapped in our arms, like Ledas lovely twins.

  Or as love-nursing Venus when she sports,

  With cherry-lipped Adonis in the shade,

  Figuring her passions in a thousand sorts,

  With sighs, and tears, or what else might persuade,

  Her dear, her sweet, her joy, her life, her love,

  Kissing his brow, his cheek, his hand, his glove.

  My beauty was the loadstar of his thought,

  My looks the pilot to his wandering eye,

  By me his senses all asleep were brought,

  When with sweet love I sang his lullaby.

  Nature had taught my tongue her perfect time,

  Which in his ear stroke duly as a chime.

  With sweetest speech, thus could I sirenise,

  Which as strong filters youths desire could move,

  And with such method could I rhetorise,

  My music played the measures to his love:

  In his fair breast, such was my souls impression,

  As to his eyes, my thoughts made intercession.

  Thus like an eagle se
ated in the sun,

  But yet a phoenix in my sovereigns eye,

  We act with shame, our revels are begun,

  The wise could judge of our catastrophe:

  But we proceed to play our wanton prize,

  Our mournful chorus was a world of eyes.

  CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

  from Edward II

  Gaveston:

  ‘My father is deceased; come Gaveston,

  And share the kingdom with thy dearest friend.’

  Ah words that make me surfeit with delight;

  What greater bliss can hap to Gaveston

  Than live and be the favourite of a king?

  Sweet prince I come; these, these thy amorous lines

  Might have enforced me to have swum from France.

  And like Leander gasped upon the sand,

  So thou wouldst smile and take me in thy arms.

  The sight of London to my exiled eyes

  Is as Elysium to a new-come soul;

  Not that I love the city or the men

  But that it harbours him I hold so dear,

  The king, upon whose bosom let me die

  And with the world be still at enmity.

  What need the arctic people love starlight,

  To whom the sun shines both by day and night?

  Farewell base stooping to the lordly peers;

  My knee shall bow to none but to the king.

  As for the multitude that are but sparks,

  Raked up in embers of their poverty,

  Tanti; I’ll fan first on the wind,

  That glanceth at my lips and flieth away.

  [1.1.1—23]

  I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits,

  Musicians, that with touching of a string

  May draw the pliant king which way I please;

  Music and poetry is his delight,

  Therefore I’ll have Italian masques by night,

  Sweet speeches, comedies and pleasing shows,

  And in the day when he shall walk abroad,

  Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad,

  My men like satyrs grazing on the lawns

  Shall with their goat feet dance an antic hay;

  Sometimes a lovely boy in Dian’s shape,

  With hair that gilds the water as it glides,

  Crownets of pearl about his naked arms,

  And in his sportful hands an olive-tree

  To hide those parts which men delight to see,

  Shall bathe him in a spring, and there hard by

  One like Actaeon peeping through the grove

  Shall by the angry goddess be transformed,

  And running in the likeness of an hart,

  By yelping hounds pulled down and seem to die;

  Such things as these best please his majesty.

  [1.1.51-70]

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  Sonnet 20

  A womans face, with Nature s own hand painted,

  Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;

  A womans gentle heart, but not acquainted

  With shifting change, as is false womens fashion;

  An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,

  Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

  A man in hue all hues in his controlling,

  Which steals mens eyes and womens souls amazeth.

  And for a woman wert thou first created,

  Till Nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,

  And by addition me of thee defeated,

  By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

  But since she pricked thee out for womens pleasure,

  Mine be thy love, and thy loves use their treasure.

  ROBERT HERRICK

  To Music, to becalm a sweet-sick-youth

  Charms, that call down the moon from out her sphere,

  On this sick youth work your enchantments here:

  Bind up his senses with your numbers, so,

  As to entrance his pain, or cure his woe.

  Fall gently, gently, and a while him keep

  Lost in the civil wilderness of sleep:

  That done, then let him, dispossess’d of pain,

  Like to a slumb’ring bride, awake again.

  JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER

  Song

  Love a Woman! y are an Ass,

  Tis a most insipid Passion,

  To choose out for your happiness

  The silliest part of Gods Creation.

  Let the Porter, and the Groome,

  Things design’d for dirty Slaves,

  Drudge in fair Aurelias Womb,

  To get supplies for Age and Graves.

  Farewel Woman, I intend,

  Henceforth, ev’ry Night to sit,

  With my lewd well-naturd Friend,

  Drinking, to engender Wit.

  Then give me Health, Wealth, Mirth, and Wine,

  And if busie Love intrenches,

  There’s a sweet soft Page of mine,

  Does the trick worth Forty Wenches.

  WALT WHITMAN

  We Two Boys Together Clinging

  We two boys together clinging,

  One the other never leaving,

  Up and down the roads going, North and South

  excursions making,

  Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,

  Arm’d and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving,

  No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering,

  thieving, threatening,

  Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water

  drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing,

  Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statues mocking,

  feebleness chasing,

  Fulfilling our foray.

  GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

  The Buglers First Communion

  A bugler boy from barrack (it is over the hill

  There) — boy bugler, born, he tells me, of Irish

  Mother to an English sire (he

  Shares the best gifts surely, fall how things will).

  This very very day came down to us after a boon he on

  My late being there begged of me, overflowing

  Boon in my bestowing,

  Came, I say, this day to it — to a First Communion.

  Here he knelt then in regimental red.

  Forth Christ from cupboard fetched, how fain I of feet

  To his youngster take his treat!

  Low latched in leaf light housel his too huge godhead.

  There! and your sweetest sendings, ah divine,

  By it, heavens, befall him! as a heart Christs darling, dauntless;

  Tongue true, vaunt- and tauntless;

  Breathing bloom of a chastity in mansex fine.

  Frowning and forefending angel-warder

  Squander the hell-rook ranks sally to molest him;

  March, kind comrade, abreast him;

  Dress his days to a dextrous and starlight order.

  How it dóes my heart good, visiting us at that bleak hill,

  When limber liquid youth, that to all I teach

  Yields tender as a pushed peach,

  Hies headstrong to its wellbeing of a self-wise self-will!

  Then though I should tread tufts of consolation

  Dáys áfter, só I in a sort deserve to

  And do serve God to serve to

  Just such slips of soldiery Christ s royal ration.

  Nothing élse is like it, no, not all so strains

  Us: fresh youth fretted in a bloomfall all portending

  That sweets sweeter ending;

  Realm both Christ is heir to and thére réigns.

  O now well work that sealing sacred ointment!

  O for now charms, arms, what bans off bad

  And locks love ever in a lad!

  Let mé though see no more of him, and not disappointment

  Those sweet hopes quell whose least me quickenings lift,

&nbs
p; In scarlet or somewhere of some day seeing

  That brow and bead of being,

  An our days God’s own Galahad. Though this child’s drift

  Seems by a divine bloom channelled, nor do I cry

  Disaster there; but there may he not rankle and roam

  In backwheels though bound home? —

  That left to the Lord of the Eucharist, I here lie by;

  Recorded only, I have put my lips on pleas

  Would brandle adamantine heaven with ride and jar, did

  Prayer go disregarded;

  Forward-like, but however, and like favourable heaven heard

  these.

  HORATIO BROWN

  Bored

  At a London Music

  Two rows of foolish faces blent

  In two blurred lines; the compliment,

  The formal smile, the cultured air,

  The sense of falseness everywhere.

  Her ladyship superbly dressed —

  I liked their footman, John, the best.

  The tired musicians ruffled mien,

  Their whispered talk behind the screen,

  The frigid plaudits, quite confined

  By fear of being unrefined.

  His lordships grave and courtly jest —

  I liked their footman, John, the best.

  Remote I sat with shaded eyes,